Tibetan Studies Library

The main component of the Center for Tibetan Studies, the Tibetan Studies Library is a specialized research library whose holdings focus mainly on the religious field (Tibetan Buddhism and Bön) and the history of Tibet up to the modern period. They also cover fields such as architecture, archaeology, the study of Dunhuang documents and music.

The library holds some 10, ,000 volumes of books, two-thirds of them in Tibetan, 86, titles of periodicals (including some ten current subscriptions), offprints, manuscripts, xylographs, archival documents, as well as online resources, including a selection of texts from the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC) which can be consulted on site. The library also has access to collections compiled by researchers.

The collections are accessible via the Collège de France Omnia catalog. The most recent works, as well as a large part of the Tibetan collection, are also listed in Sudoc, the national catalog of higher education and research establishments. The Tibetan Studies Library was the first in the West to offer bi-lingual French-Tibetan cataloguing, as of 2010, in the Sudoc catalog.

A selection of the Library's precious holdings (manuscripts, xylographs, archival documents and periodicals) is gradually being digitized and put online on Salamandre, the digital heritage library and archive catalog of the Collège de France. Certain works are the subject of entries in Colligere, the research notebook of the Collège de France libraries and archives.

The Tibetan Studies Library also holds a substantial collection of the Tibet Mirror or Melong (Yul phyogs so so'i gsar 'gyur me long), a Tibetan-language news paper published in Kalimpong (India) from 1925 to 1963. Part of the collection was digitized in 2011 as part of an agreement withColumbia University (USA) to showcase this heritage. As part of a partnership with the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA, India), all issues of Tibet Mirror in the possession of the LTWA or a French library (collections of the Bibliothèque d'études tibétaines of the Collège de France, the Société Asiatique and the Musée Guimet) have been scanned and presented in a database, available on Salamandre, the digital heritage library and archive catalog of the Collège de France.

The library offers 58 seats, including three carrels and two rooms for group work in a reading room shared by the five libraries of the Asian Worlds Department.

Access reserved for teachers, researchers and students at Masters level and above, on the recommendation of their research supervisor.

The reader's card is issued on justification of research, and is valid for one year.

The library is also open to people who, for professional or personal reasons, need to consult its collections from time to time.

Access to collections :
Some of the collections are freely accessible in the reading room. In-store collections are available on request.

Interlibrary loan (ILL):
This service enables registered readers to borrow documents not held at the Collège de France from outside libraries. Requests are centralized by Collège de France's Department of Libraries, Archives and Collections (DBAC), and any reader wishing to obtain a document is invited to write to the following address:

Additional services :

• Coin-operated photocopier (photocopying is subject to copyright and the state of conservation of the document), wifi internet access, computer workstations for consulting catalogs and electronic resources.

• Information by post, e-mail or telephone, bibliographic research online and on site.

The library is open Monday to Friday from 10 h to 19 h.